A well known means of controlling power states of a selective call radio is to provide a user control, such as a momentary push button switch or a slide switch which, when activated, changes the mode of the selective call radio. A very commonly provided user control is a slide switch which is user activated for turning a selective call radio on and off. Another example of a user control is a push button switch which, when depressed by a user, causes a sequential display of several state names, from which the user can select a power state by releasing the push button during the display of the desired state name. A normal reason for putting a selective call radio into an off state is for battery saving in portable selective call radios.
These means work well in many circumstances, but a problem exists in current radios under circumstances which have arisen recently. Specifically, pagers are now being loaned to users for short periods to provide information to the user while the pager is on loan to the user. An example of this is a restaurant business, wherein a pager is loaned to patrons awaiting a table, who return the pager when an alert is received which indicates the table is available. Currently available pagers are typically controlled to be turned on and off by means of a user accessible control. In the off state, the receiver section of the pager is not powered and alerts are not received. Access to the user control for turning the pager off occasionally results in situation wherein a patron unwittingly puts the pager into the off state without realizing that he has done so, resulting in obvious customer dissatisfaction because the user misses the alert when it is transmitted.
Thus, what is needed is a way to prevent a user from putting a pager into an off state, while still allowing the pager to be put into the off state by an operator, for battery saving purposes.